


Finding Home

by championofnone



Series: The Shepard Chronicles [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7061242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/championofnone/pseuds/championofnone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Crucible's blast knocked the Normandy around before she could leave the system. They limp back to Earth.</p><p>Shepard's still unaccounted for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first rewrite I did for the ending. I no longer consider it canonical for my Shepard and it'll probably be taken down soon.

They’d tried to leave the system, but the blast got to them first, knocking out the already battered thruster’s of the Normandy’s systems and sending her spiraling. The crew screamed, grabbing onto anything bolted down or onto their harnesses as the artificial gravity failed.

They thanked their lucky stars EDI had warned them this could happen and released the oxygen masks before she’d gone dark. 

Joker, by some miracle, pulled the Normandy upright and used the very last reserves of power to throw the gravity on, foregoing any hope of moving for the moment. The oxygen would last them for maybe a few hours, but he doubted even that. 

Traynor helped him limp down to engineering, finding everyone who knew anything about a drive core working furiously, Adams and Tali shouting orders at anyone who could hear them. 

“Hey, what the hell happened?” he asked. 

“EDI’s not responding,” Gaby responded, hands flying over the display in front of her. “When she went dark the core couldn’t sustain the pace alone.” 

“Did her wiring break or something?” He didn’t want to allow the panic into his voice, but he couldn’t block it out entirely if he went by the look Samantha gave him. 

Gaby shrugged, taking a second’s break to press her palms to her eyes. “I don’t know. Whoever’s in the AI core is probably trying to get her back online, we _have_ to get this drive core going again. I’m sorry, but EDI isn’t our top priority right now, Joker.” 

His throat was dry as they made their way to the crew deck, all non-essential crew members still strapped into the emergency seats. No one was talking, hoping to save what oxygen the Normandy had left, and - no. He wasn’t going to think about that. 

Dr. Chakwas greeted them from the medbay, the door to the AI core held open with one of Garrus’s sniper rifles. Glyph was buzzing away at the panel where EDI’s primary controls were, with Liara just off to the side. “Please tell me you have good news,” he didn’t beg. 

She looked up at him, and quickly tried to hide her expression of pity. He started being concerned he would be ill. “I am sorry, Joker, but she’s been unresponsive so far. I have Glyph trying to raise her using binary. Maybe only a portion of her took damage from the beam…”

A low hum filled the room and his hope soared, only to crash after hearing the air vents kick back on - whatever repairs engineering was doing were working, they had air cycling back. “Well, at least we won’t suffocate. Don’t need the Normandy losing anyone else that way.”

“What?” “Joker!” Samantha and Liara both exclaimed. “It’s not the time!” 

He scoffed, leaning on the railing. “Well, terribly sorry, but my girlfriend’s probably dead and we’re aimlessly drifting around Saturn. I’ll just get over that and put on my happy face for you right away.” 

Liara snapped her mouth shut, turning to face Glyph once again. “We’ll do what we can, Joker. Tali and Gaby said they would come up once they get the drive core running. We need to get back to Earth.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging off Traynor’s hand as he left the room. “We never should have left Shepard.”

Kaidan stared at him from one of the beds in the bay, strung up a little on whatever medication Chakwas had given him. James was dozing on the one next to him, both having taken bad hits in ground mission on Earth. “What’s going on?” he mumbled. 

“EDI’s out of commission, we’re stranded, and I have no idea where we are,” Joker snapped back.

Kaidan sighed, closing his eyes again. “You’ll get us home, Joker.”

“Really? And you know this how?” Chakwas shot him a look that he ignored.

“Shepard believed in you. You don’t get a better recommendation than that.” 

Joker went to speak again, but Kaidan was already back asleep. He squared his jaw and left for the cockpit. He had a point - Shepard was somewhere on the wreckage of the Citadel, or she’d fallen to Earth. She’d given her life for him before and he wasn’t about to let her efforts go to waste. 

It took another five hours before the drive core was back online. Joker hadn’t even noticed until the panels in front of him flared to life, orange and red screens flashing warnings and readings at him faster than he could comprehend them. He dragged up the diagnostics and ran what he could; the Normandy was 60% operational, and her shields were barely holding steady, but it would have to do to get them home. He carefully didn’t watch as Samantha came to the cockpit and draped a blanket over EDI’s body. 

Three days later, the Normandy docked on Earth. The now-legendary ship was given full clearance to land in the precious little space available, and Hackett was waiting on the ground as the crew stepped out, Kaidan and Joker at the front of them. 

“Major Alenko,” he greeted, shaking the biotic’s hand firmly, “congratulations on making it home. How’s your crew holding up?” 

Joker swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth at that. They still hadn’t found Shepard if Hackett’s addressing Kaidan as acting captain. To his credit, the pilot noticed, Kaidan’s expression didn’t change, even though Joker knew the address was probably killing him. 

“Took a few hits, but we came out okay,” he responded. “The Normandy’s gonna need serious repairs, especially since when our VI -“ Joker tried not to bristle as Kaidan spoke “-went offline it took most of our systems with it for a while. They took a pretty brutal hit, but we have a good crew.”

Hackett nodded. “That you do, Major. I want all of the Normandy’s crew to report to medical, and if you’re cleared, check with recon and rescue, see if anyone can help out.” 

“Sir, I can go straight to rescue -”

“That’s an order, Major.” Hackett looked at him hard; Kaidan had the sense to stay quiet. “I know about you and Shepard, Alenko,” his shoulders stiffened as Hackett continued, “and I’m fully willing to overlook it given the circumstances and your Spectre statuses. But you’re reporting to medical and getting an amp check before I’ll give you clearance to work rescue.” 

“Yes, sir,” he responded, voice tight. The crew followed him off, exhausted and nervous. 

A handful of nurses came out to usher them into the tents, with Liara and Kaidan off to the side for separate checks on their amp ports. It took almost three hours for most of the ground crew to get their clearance, and Kaidan had already received word from Hackett to lead the sixth rescue team and head north of Vancouver at sunrise. 

James and Garrus volunteered immediately, and Liara offered Glyph to them to scan for places they couldn’t get into. Tali brought a modded defense drone with her when they set out, swearing at the camera that didn’t want to accept the thermal scanning software she’d installed. Joker refused to let anyone else shuttle them out. 

They hadn’t landed more than five minutes ago when a loud whine caught Kaidan’s attention. He yelled, calling everyone to hurry over, and when they moved the debris blocking the voice, Kaidan had to brace himself as a heavy weight launched itself at him, licking his face enthusiastically. 

“Is that a dog?” Garrus asked. “I expected it to look more like a varren.” 

“That’s a dog, alright,” James laughed. “You know this mutt, Major?”

Kaidan finally got a grip on the worn collar, searching for a tag until his thumb hit the cold metal, not wanting to answer unless he was sure. “Yeah, actually. This is my dad’s Boxer.” James let out a low whistle. “I guess mom couldn’t take him with her on the shuttle out of Vancouver. Everyone, meet Tank, my dad’s prickly dog.” 

He stood, keeping a tight grip on the collar, but the dog refused to stop pulling at Kaidan’s hand. “Maybe he found someone?” James offered. 

Tali clicked on her drone, letting it bob for a moment before it hovered next to Tank’s head. He growled at it, but didn’t move to bite. “Let the drone follow him, we’ll see if he finds anything.” 

Tank took off once Kaidan released him, Tali’s drone hurrying to keep up. “I wonder how he got caught in there. He looks too clean to have been there for more than a few hours.” 

“Who knows? C’mon, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” Garrus’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and they moved on. 

Four hours later, they hadn’t found any survivors. The locations of the bodies they unburied were tagged and uploaded to recon’s database, and the day’s afternoon team would pick them up on their sweep of the area. Their morale was flagging; the chances of finding anyone alive in such devastation was slim to begin with, and it got smaller as each minute passed. 

“Look,” Garrus said as they moved northwest towards a massive block of debris, “doesn’t that look like the outer part of a Citadel arm?”

Kaidan shot by him, ignoring everyone else at the hope it might be - “Shepard!” he called out, optimism getting the better of him. He clambered up on one of the broken ledges of metal, scanning for any holes in the debris they could start in when Tali’s drone popped out of one of them. He activated Glyph and sent him in after it for a thermal scan report. 

“Anything?” Garrus asked as the rest of the team followed him on top of the debris. 

“Tali’s drone kept popping in and out of one spot, so I sent Glyph in. Maybe a survivor. But this is Citadel debris, so maybe - maybe it’s -” He was certain he was shaking from nerves. What if it wasn’t Shepard they’d found? What would happen if they _couldn’t_ find her?

Glyph popped back up before he could get too deeply into his thoughts. “Major! I have excellent news! I believe your dog has found the Commander!”

“Wha - the dog?” Tali asked, bewildered. 

“Dios mio,” James muttered. “Has he been with her since this thing crashed?”

“Show me where, Glyph,” Kaidan ordered. “We need to get digging!” 

They tore into the debris around them, Kaidan quickly lifting the heavier pieces with his biotics. He could hear Tank barking from the bottom, and guessed wherever his voice was, Shepard was. Finally, they made enough of a dent for Kaidan to jump down. 

It was narrow, and there was barely enough give in the debris for air to get in. But there she was - Shepard, covered in burns and blood, what was left of her hair matted to her face with grime and who knows what else, a nasty cut running across her cheekbone down to her jaw, her armor melted into her skin, and she’d never looked so beautiful to him.

“Shepard,” he breathed, falling to his knees next to her and carefully cradling her jaw with his hand. “Hey, I’m here, please look at me.” 

A second felt like a lifetime, the glow of Tali’s drone next to him almost unnoticeable as he watched every muscle in Shepard’s face, his free hand desperately feeling for a pulse and wanting to scream in joy when he found it.

Then her left eye twitched, and she opened it ever so slightly. Her lips parted, but she couldn’t move her jaw enough to speak, and the attempt alone screwed her eye shut with pain. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, you don’t have to talk, I’ve got you.” He was probably crying by now, but he didn’t care, fumbling with his omnitool to call base. 

“This is base, what’s the problem, Major?” a brunette private responded, only half looking at the screen. He couldn’t blame her, it’s not like he was looking to her, either. 

“Radio Hackett and send out the emergency shuttle, I’ve got Commander Shepard.” 

He heard the datapad she was holding drop as she yelped, shoved out of her chair by one of the captains on base. “Did I hear you right, Alenko?”

“Yes, sir, you did, but we need emergency evac and we need it now, Shepard’s hurt badly and field medicine won’t cut it. Get Miranda Lawson to base by the time we’re back.”

“On it, Major.” 

He shut down the call and resisted the urge to hug her. “You’re gonna be fine, Shepard, don’t worry.” Sunlight hit her face and it was now bright enough to notice that Tank had curled up against her other side, covering the area where it looked like a good portion of her armor had been blown off. “You kept her save, huh, buddy?” Tank wuffed softly in response, not lifting his head from Shepard’s side. 

Kaidan was honestly surprised. Shepard had only met Tank once when they visited his parents in Vancouver years ago after the Battle of the Citadel when the Normandy was docked for repairs. Shepard had nowhere to go after visiting the Williams family, and tagged along with Kaidan to see his parents. They never told the Alenkos about their relationship, but he was almost certain his mom knew. 

His dad hadn’t had Tank long when they’d visited. The Boxer had failed out of the military dog program, and the Alenko family had volunteered to adopt him. He’d had a temper and took a long time to warm up to people, and the Alliance had decided this made him unsuitable for field work. Tank was barely comfortable being around his owners for more than an hour or two at a time, so when Kaidan found him sound asleep on Shepard under tree just outside his house, he was certainly surprised. 

He was even more surprised that Tank had still remembered her, and must have caught her scent when the Citadel crashed on Earth, and given the state of things, only left her to search for help - which is exactly what the Alliance had trained him to do. So much for failing training. 

“Kaidan! We’ve got medical evac here!” Joker called down. “Wrex brought some friends, we’re gonna clear the top here to lift Shepard out.”

“Be careful! She’s not stable!” he yelled back, carefully extending his natural barrier to cover the three of them. Bits and pieces of debris fell as the krogran team got it out of the way, but none made it through. 

Wrex’s manic grin was the first thing to greet him once he was cleared. “That’s one clever little varren you’ve got there.” 

Kaidan carefully loaded Shepard onto the stretcher the medics had sent down, and she groaned as the drones lifted her out, hands folded carefully across her stomach. He went to lift Tank out, but the dog had already gone and come out the narrow way off to the side, and was standing ready next to James. He followed, and took no argument about going with Shepard in the medic shuttle, with Joker taking everyone else and Tank and following them to the base. 

Miranda was on the top of the landing pad, hair up and ready to go in whatever way Shepard’s injuries demanded. Kaidan followed them as she barked orders at the doctors, calling for this surgeon and that one, and he only looked up from Shepard’s battered face when Miranda touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Major,” she said gently, “but you need to wait out here. I can’t let you in the operating room. I’ll find you as soon as I can.” 

The double doors swung shut and locked behind her, and he couldn’t help but feel helpless. He didn’t notice Joker standing next to him until minutes later. “Let’s go find the good chairs before Vega takes them all, right?” He let himself be led away towards the critical wing’s waiting room and forced into an armchair. 

“Major, you look like shit,” James said. Kaidan blinked at him. “Hello? Earth to Major Alenko?”

Liara came up to him and handed off a damp cloth. “Take it, it’ll get the blood off of your hands. You’ll need to toss the clothing later, Kaidan.” 

He finally looked down at himself since he found Shepard; his hands were covered in dirt and her blood, and - 

\- he couldn’t have stopped himself getting ill if he tried. He bolted from the chair, barely making it outside in time, dizziness overtaking his vision. He breathed hard through his nose, ignoring the smell. She was _alive_ , he told himself. ‘ _You found her. Miranda would make sure she survived this_.’

“Might wanna step away from that.” Joker’s voice took him by surprise. He hadn’t expected the pilot to follow him out - for anyone to follow him out, actually. He snorted. “I know, I know, the look of surprised that the pilot cares.”

Kaidan immediately felt guilty. “Joker, I’m so-”

“No offense, but I don’t wanna hear another ‘sorry’ right now.”

Kaidan nodded, wiping his mouth on the towel Liara had handed him and stepping back. “Does the Alliance have any news of your family?” 

“Gone,” he said, voice dry. Kaidan stared at him. “More Reapers rolled into Tiptree as some asari commandos tried to get control of the planet back. My little sister, Hilary, she teamed up with one of them. Things went okay until she got hurt, and according to the asari’s report, would’ve given them away and got both of them killed. So the asari survived by putting a fucking bullet in my kid sister’s skull.” 

“God, Joker, that’s horrible. How did you hear about this.”

“Shepard found the file in a request at the Spectre office. The asari was requesting a gun - apparently she had a mental break after that mission and couldn’t cope. Shepard denied the request.” Of course she would. “And everything points to my dad having died on Tiptree before Hilary did, and EDI’s gone.” He didn’t speak for a minute, and Kaidan didn’t know what to say as Joker stared off, unfocused. “Shepard’s the only family I have left, Kaidan. Don’t think I’m not worried sick.”

“They can’t get EDI back online?” he asked, desperate for the topic to shift.

Joker shook his head. “Traynor said it was like looking at a blank slate. Even if they _did_ get her online, there’s no guarantee she’d be the EDI we know and -”

“…you really love her, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

He ran a hand down his face, having abandoned his hat hours ago. “I do, goddammit. How did you handle this?”

“I got drunk a lot the first few weeks,” he admitted. “Once I was cleared fit for duty, I threw myself back into whatever assignment the Alliance gave me. I couldn’t think about her, but I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing hers, or one of those few times she smiled, the way that scar on her eyebrow made her angry face ridiculous. You don’t ever really get over that.” 

“God,” Joker groaned, “my life just couldn’t be easy, could it?” 

“Now where’s the fun in that?” He straightened up and opened the door. “C’mon, let’s head back in and worry ourselves sick with some company.” 

And they did. The collected crew in the waiting room - Kaidan, Joker, Liara and Tali, Garrus and James, even Tank - waited for almost seven hours before an exhausted and pale Miranda stepped out, blood on her own clothing. Kaidan was on his feet before he registered moving. 

Time seemed to stand still before James spoke. “Well? How’s Lola?”

Mirand, still staring straight at Kaidan, grinned. “Shepard’s going to live.” 

Cheers broke out acros the room, and he stepped forward to hug her briefly. “Thank you, Ms. Lawson.”

Miranda snorted. “It’s Miranda, please.” She stepped back, ignoring the rowdiness behind Kaidan. “She has a long way to go, and she’s going to need skin grafts and a kidney transplant, but I can do all of that. But Major? I’ve seen her after trauma before. She’s going to need you there for here, come hell or high water.”

“I’ll be next to her even if Harbringer himself comes back from the dead.” 

She stared at him for a few seconds before nodding. “Good. Because I expect nothing but the best for her. She’s some of the only family I have in this galaxy, and I won’t let you ruin her because of this.”

Miranda turned and walked back towards the operating room to finalize things and set up the lab she’d need, but he could only feel relief that Shepard would live. It’d be a long road to recovery, but he had no intention of leaving her side for the rest of their lives, and he’d be willing to bet most of the Normandy’s crew felt exactly the same way. 

Tank’s head butted up against his hand, and he scratched at it. He decided he’d add Shepard’s name to his registration in the morning. 

Now, they had all the time in the world. 


End file.
